Like many rational Malaysians, I am concerned about the future of the country. The re- emergence of Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia’s political scene has resulted in a dynamic shift in politics.The fusion of his established charisma, intriguing persona and current events have contributed to this dynamic shift.However, what concerns me is his brand of politics, relying on the message of ‘hope’ for Malaysians. Hope is abstract and is infinite. Anwar is likened to a painter drawing on an empty canvass where the only limitation is his imagination.‘Hope’ can be anything he wants it to be. Anwar has his ears close to the ground. Through his extensive network, he understands the sentiments on the ground and he uses this as colours for the empty canvass.

But as a rational Malaysian, the concern is that his painting of Malaysia’s future is based on what will get him in power and not on substantive policy on a sustainable basis. Does he really believe in what he is saying? Can we believe what he is saying? Can Anwar change Malaysia?

Many think he is the leader that will bring forth the hope and aspirations of all Malaysians. I think not. If we look at Anwar’s track record as a leader, his time in Umno was tainted with claims of cronyism and corruption. He was known to be a man in a hurry, ousting Umno stalwart Ghafar Baba mercilessly.

Maybe some would argue that his time in confinement has given him a different perspective of life. Somehow, his few years away warrants his ‘knighthood’ as South East Asia’s Nelson Mandela.

Because of his ‘suffering’, he now has the moral authority to be the messenger of hope for Malaysian politics. However, I would argue that the best proxy to judge his current leadership post-Umno is his management of his party PKR today.

The party, reflects the leader. After March 8 swept the nation, Anwar’s PKR has fell short of voter’s expectations. The Selangor government fiasco(s), the recent Perak ‘sex and money’ scandal all indicate that the message of hope somehow got lost in translation.
Zulkifli Nordin’s recent actions prove that there is trouble brewing in the multiracial party. What is Azmin Ali stand? Saifuddin Nasution’s? Even worse, Anwar Ibrahim’s?

The differences runs deep in PKR and it indicates that there is no strong strand of belief that is holding them together.

Another clear indication of Anwar’s true brand of leadership is the behaviour of Anwar’s hardcore supporters. Reports of gangsterism involving local and international media, reports of disruptive behaviour towards women, all this reflects on the real leadership stand of Anwar Ibrahim.

As rational Malaysians, we must judge Anwar on real and tangible events and not merely as the harbinger of hope. Not all of us are rats of Hamelin that will follow his mesmerising tune into our graves.

The question that rational Malaysians must ask therefore is, will the real Anwar Ibrahim, please stand up? Decide once and for all is your motto ‘A New Dawn For Malaysia’ or ‘Lawan Tetap Lawan’?

Soft Launching of the 2008 campaign will be conducted at the UPNM on Thursday 28th August 2008. The event will allow us to make a nationwide announcement in the next day Friday morning newspapers to the official launching and the start of our nationwide 3-days Kempen Derma Darah Pra-Ramadhan 2008.

#1The Dates and Times will be filled as we received further confirmation from the 3 parties at each location namely: 1) Our Ansara representative (Venue Coordinator); 2) The premise manager; and 3) The blood donation team.

1)This list will be constantly updated as we organise and progress further.

It has been announced. RON 97 and diesel is now retailed at RM 2.55 and RM 2.50 respectively. It may not been reduced as calculated by BigDogDotCom two days ago, to RM 2.35. Never the less, any reduction is a step to something positive for the rakyat.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced Friday that the Cabinet had decided that the price of RON97 petrol be reduced by 15 sen to RM2.55 a litre from RM2.70, while RON92 would cost 22 sen less at RM2.40 a litre from RM2.62 a litre.

The retail price of diesel would drop by eight sen to RM2.50 a litre, he said in a statement.

The petrol price was determined by taking into account the actual price from Aug 1 to 21 and the 30 sen per litre subsidy borne by the government while the subsidy for diesel, based on the new price, was 50 sen a litre.

“The cabinet today decided to bring forward the enforcement date for adjustment of the new petrol price,” he said.

Abdullah said the decision was made after taking into account the fall in the world fuel price in recent weeks and the steep rise in the inflation rate last month.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for last month, as announced today, rose by 8.5 per cent compared with July last year.

“It is the government’s hope that the reduction in the petrol and diesel price will help ease the burden of consumers and reduce the inflationary pressure, especially on the low- and middle-income earners. The decision is also based on the current economic development,” the prime minister said.

On Aug 1, the government announced that the petrol retail price till the end of the year would be adjusted on the first of every month, with the subsidy maintained at 30 sent per litre.

However, the prime minister said the adjustment formula would only be implemented if the retail price of petrol was less than RM2.70 per litre. Otherwise the price would be capped at that.

On June 5, the government raised the petrol price by 78 sen or 41 per cent from RM1.92 to RM2.70 a litre and diesel by RM1 or 63 per cent from RM1.58 to RM2.58 a litre.

At that time the world oil price was US$125 a barrel and it continued to rise to hover at US$140 a barrel at one time but has been on a downward trend since early this month.

The price was around US$115 a barrel last week and US$121 a barrel yesterday.

With today’s announcement, the drop in price of RON97 petrol was 5.5 per cent, RON92 (8.4 per cent) and diesel (3.1 per cent).

Yesterday, PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi turun padang and experience for himself what the hundred of thousands of rakyat got to through every working day of the life. PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Abdullah took the KTM Kommuter and Putra LRT from Serdang to Masjid Jamek.

KUALA LUMPUR: Setting aside protocol, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took rides on the commuter and LRT rail services from Serdang to the city centre yesterday to get a feel of the transport problems faced by the public and came away less than satisfied.

Throughout the one-hour journey, during which he switched trains, the Prime Minister noted the congestion, especially during the peak period, and spoke to his fellow passengers to get feedback.

Speaking to Bernama after disembarking at the Masjid Jamek LRT station, he said he was not satisfied and wanted immediate improvements to be made.

He said the existing services were not systematic, there were not enough coaches and coverage was not comprehensive, leaving many areas not serviced.

“I just saw the plight of people using the trains to get to work every morning. They were jostling to get on board every time a train arrived. There appeared to be no system.

“I’m not happy with this because the people are not getting satisfaction from riding the trains. This we must fix,” he said.

“I found the trains really packed. Some had waited for three trains and yet could not board.

“There’s no queue. People push their way in, women with children and old people are pushed aside,” he added.

Abdullah, who was unaccompanied by officials from the two rail services, arrived at the Serdang Komuter KTM station at 8.15am but could not get on board the first train that arrived because it was packed.

He got on the next train that came 15 minutes later and headed for KL Sentral, the transport hub for the various rail services.

There he also had to wait a while to switch to the Putra LRT service to get to the Masjid Jamek station because, again, the first train to arrive was full.

On both the trains that he took, the prime minister, dressed in a red batik shirt with gold print, stood although passengers offered him their seats.

Upon arrival at the Masjid Jamek station at 9.15am, he chatted with members of the public and bought local cakes from the sellers there before leaving.

Abdullah said he would give attention to efforts to improve the quality of both rail services.

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Now he knows, what the rakyat endure just to lead a normal Klang Valley life, as a working class. A lot of hardship and pain. Especially after the abrupt exorbitant retail petrol price hike on 5 June 2008. PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Abdullah made more promises. “Better and efficient public transport service for the rakyat”.

For one, can the Government or Prasarana afford all of these desires? This growing requirement is nothing new. Every year, there is an influx of new economic migrants from all over Malaysia in search of the pot of gold on greener postures, arrive with hope amongst the Klang Valleyites’ doorsteps. This influx will definitely demand more resources and investments made to cater for the needs, especially the ‘start-uppers’. The exponential increasing cost of living naturally require the Government to cater and make their living more bearable.

Two, when he did the 30sen per litre petrol price hike in May 2006, he already promised that the saving on fuel subsidy, amounting RM 4 billion annually would be poured back into upgrading and improving the public transportation. That did not happen. Klang Valleyites actually endure more hardships throughout these 2 ½ years.

Third, even if there were any investments made for the public transportation system in the Klang Valley, most of it went to Scomi. The Rapid KL buses were supplied by the Scomi group. So is the building the train coaches for the Klang Valley transport system. It was said that Scomi had supplied Rapid KL with inferior China made buses.

So, will this become another exercise for Scomi, especially when the monorail system in Penang has been postponed indefinitely?

*Updated at 600pm

KTMB board met on Wednesday. One of the item was a RM 67 million contract for new coaches. Three companies were shortlisted, which include Scomi. One of the board member, which represent a Ministry said the meeting that his Minister’s ‘instruction’ is for KTMB to ‘award’ the contract to Scomi. The board rejected the ‘instruction’ and went ahead on the evaluation of the three shortlisted companies.

Conveniently, the father one of the single largest shareholder of one of the bidding company decided to go walkabout on one of the KTMB’s services the very next day and made statement to portray the urgency to upgrade; i.e. spend more money!

1.Malaysia is a trading nation. It had been one for 1800 years.It is hard to believe this but this is what I read in a paper written by an American academic who was attached to one of the Malaysian Government Universities.

2.In the beginning it was only about collecting jungle produce like gums and aromatic wood to exchange for lacquer ware, ceramic and paper etc from China.Since then we have made tremendous progress in trading. Now we produce and export, apart from raw rubber and palm oil, also microchips and electronic manufactured goods.

3.A trading nation is very sensitive to what is happening to its trading partners.Obviously when partners do well, we can expect to export more and do well ourselves.And the reverse is also true.When partners suffer from economic disease, we tend to catch the disease as well.

4.That is why you may remember we promoted the slogan “prosper thy neighbour”.When neighbours are prosperous we can expect to sell more to them and vice versa.Apart from that in these days of easy travel and porous borders we can expect a fallout from neighbours with problems in the form of illegal immigrants.

5.Today we have become a world trade centre, exporting and importing from almost 200 different countries.The economic health of these countries are important to us.And certainly the economic health of the world is extremely important to our own economic health.

6.What is the economic situation in the world today?There is turmoil and unprecedented increases in the prices of practically everything.

7.We have seen some inflation before but never on the scale we are seeing now.

8.Oil for example went up by almost 400%.Other raw materials like steel, copper, aluminium have also gone up sky high.So have food grains and edible oils.

9.The increases in prices of these basic raw materials have inflated the prices of everything else.

10.Oil is crucial to transportation, whether by land, sea or air.The sharp increase in oil price must push up the cost of everything that is transported by any means anywhere. We have as yet not found alternative fuels and improvements in fuel efficiency have not reduced consumption significantly.

11.World consumption of fuel oil goes up everyday.Although new reserves are being found and produced, production has not been able to keep up with consumption.Demand pull has increased the price a little but the ridiculous increase of 400% is more due to speculation and manipulation.On any day more oil is traded than is produced or available in storage.These activities are what cause the increase in oil price, the apparent shortages and again the greater increase in price.

12.The increase in other raw material price is due to increased demand by two economic giants, especially China.Together with India and several other Newly Industrialising countries of Asia, all developing rapidly and involved in massive construction and industries the demand for raw material like steel, copper, aluminium, rubber, edible oils, food grains has caused shortages and unprecedented increases in price.The shortage of food grains was caused by seasonal decreases in production.But this is going to happen again and again.

13.The war in Iraq is another important factor.Every United States President has promised to reduce the deficit in the U.S. budget but at the end of their terms the deficits have increased.But President Bush is going to leave to his successor the biggest budget deficit in the U.S. history.But worse than that he will leave behind a much-devalued U. S. dollar.

14.It is due to his reckless spending on tax cuts of 1.3 trillion for the rich.The war in Iraq has already cost the U.S. 3 trillion dollars according to (former World Bank Chief Economist) Joseph Stiglitz and will continue to cost more.

15.Other countries would have gone bankrupt with the twin deficits the United States suffers from.Although the United States has not, still the faith in the U.S.D. as a trading currency and as reserves has all but disappeared.The dollar is but a shadow of its former self.Once countries reject the U.S.D. as trading currency and as reserves the greenback would become quite worthless. Unfortunately the countries, including Malaysia, which hold dollar reserves will lose also. That is why countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Japan and little Singapore keep on trying to shore up the US Dollar.

16.Of course it is not just Bush who is making the US Dollar useless.It is the playing around with money by institutions and funds in the US.Loans and mortgages are sold like commodities.The amounts involved are huge.Cash has almost been outlawed as plastics of all kinds are used as money in daily transactions.

17.Banks distribute credit cards without caring whether the holders would have money to pay or not.They claim to know the average losses and therefore despite failures to meet credit card debts they would still make profits.

18.But when millions of credit cards are used worldwide the bad debts must be quite considerable.People are living on the never never as never before.But one day all these shuffling of figures in bank books must blow up.

19.Apparently that is what has happened to sub prime lending for housing.Banks and institutional funds are falling like nine-pins.The Great United States which use to tell us not to bail out bankrupt companies now put up as much as 200 billion dollars to bail out the banks and now the mortgage companies with fancy names like Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae.

20.With all these things happening to the financial sector of the United States the Dollar cannot possibly stay strong.When it weakens a lot of countries which hold reserves in US Dollar must suffer.And Malaysia too must feel it as despite very early warnings we still like a chunk of our reserves to be in US Dollar.

21.Inflation takes place all the time in every country.Certainly Malaysia is not an exception.The factors influencing inflation are internal as well as external.And as a trading nation with total trade of more than 100 billion a year, Malaysia cannot possible escape the current world wide inflation, an inflation which affects every one of our trading partners.

22.Nevertheless we would be more fortunate than most of our neighbours.This is due to the unusual rise in the prices of the commodities we export.We also export manufactured goods but the imported contents of these are high and they have all increased in price. Still the trade balance will remain much in our favour for some time.

23.What are the raw materials we export?Although we are a small producer of oil, our population is not big.After consuming about two thirds we can still export a tidy sum.Together with our foreign oil operations our revenue from oil actually exceeds our total revenue from income and corporate tax. For a country with a small oil production we have done rather well and hopefully will continue doing well for some time.

24.All the taxes and dividends from Petronas would go to the Government Consolidated funds and much of it would be used to subsidise pump prices for oil.The Government has withdrawn much of this subsidy but I think even at the higher pump price there would be some subsidy element.

25.Oil price may go down but never to the old level.So Malaysians will have to put up with high oil price.

26.Gas is subsidised by Petronas.Now gas has to be imported by Petronas at world prices. To sell it at low prices fixed by the Government for the IPPs (Independent Power Producers) would mean Petronas would have to subsidise it. Other oil companies would not want to do it. Perhaps you may have noticed that Natural Gas for motor vehicles is only sold by Petronas.

27.Over time consumption of oil and gas will exceed local supply.There will be no excess to export and to earn the money to subsidise oil and gas prices.Government revenues from other sources would not be enough to subsidise oil prices.So we will have to face this prospect of high oil prices, even if world prices go below US100 Dollar per barrel.

28.With increases in oil prices other goods and services will increase in price also.And of course the increases in raw material prices world wide will increase the cost of these at home.Construction material and construction cost must all go up.

29.Generally the impact of Current Global Economy on Malaysia would be to raise the cost of living – i.e. it will cause inflation.Now the rate of inflation is said to be 7%.This is misleading.For most ordinary people it must seem much more.Just the increase in oil price is 40%.And the increase in other food products are much higher.

30.Malaysians will be facing unprecedented inflation rate.The result must be demands for increases in wages and salaries.This must add to cost and will contribute to increases in prices of local products as well as exported goods.

31.But then the increases in oil and raw material costs must affect other countries too.Our competitors would not be free from high inflation.So the competitive advantage of the low labour cost countries would not increase much as their costs would also have to go up.

32.But oil is not the only raw material we export.We also export palm oil and rubber together with some tin, pepper and cocoa.All these have increased in price and will therefore increase our export earnings. In fact the present increase in the value of our trade and the surplus are mainly due to the increases in oil, palm oil and rubber prices.

33.The raw material price increases are far more beneficial to us than the increase in the price of manufactured goods.This is because much of the manufactured goods have imported contents which have all increased in price.The profit margin may not increase percentage-wise.Besides although the figure for exports of manufactured good may be quite high, we would earn little for they are mostly tax-free.

34.Still manufacturing will remain important because of the employment of large numbers of people.Unfortunately more foreigners would be likely to be employed and their remittance would be very substantial. The outflow of cash would be quite substantial.

35.Although the cost of travelling would go up, there will continue to be more tourists coming to Malaysia.This is because our main source of tourists are China and other Asian countries.These countries are likely to grow higher than world average and more people would be wage earners in new industries.They would want to travel.

36. Initially the people in newly industrialising countries would go to places closer to their countries.We are close to all these countries and so we would benefit from the economic growth of these countries.Our tourist industry does not depend on Europe or America.So the reduction in the numbers of European and American tourists will not affect us.

37.Although palm oil and rubber production can go on producing forever, but Malaysia is short of land.More and more of our estates would be developed in foreign land. This will contribute to our economy.

38.Malaysia’s growth will slow down as much because of global regression as by local factors.What is certain however is that we will have a high cost environment domestically and internationally?All countries will have to learn to deal with this new global and domestic environment.

39.For a time we would be less negatively affected than most other developing countries.But eventually we will have to face the fact of a world in economic turmoil, a high cost world and a shifting of the centers of growth from the West to the East.

40.When finally the world learns to live in this environment Malaysia will find everything has changed.The old comfortable way of growing the economy will be gone.Whether Malaysia will emerge better off or worse would depend upon our understanding of the changes and the adjustment we will make. We will see our trade and our growth becoming more influenced by the countries of Asia, in particular China and India. The increasing wealth of the Gulf States will also change the direction of our trade and the sources of foreign investments.

41. Investments from the oil-rich states would be largely in property development. If we succeed in training our workforce we may continue to attract high-tech industries.

42. Of course the impact on Malaysia of current global economic changes would depend much on how we adjust to them and how we manage them.

The retail of price for petrol and diesel in Malaysia ought to come down in the near future. This is because at the moment, the price of crude oil in the international market is much lower than what it was at the end of May, when Government abruptly announced the retail price of petrol and diesel drastically increased to RM 0.72 and RM 1.00 respectively.

On the 5 June 2008, the RM 1.92 per litre of petrol was increased to RM 2.70. Crude oil price was trading at almost USD 140 per barrel. Today, the price of crude oil went down to just below USD 113 per barrel. It is expected that it will go down to USD 105 per barrel by end of the year.

This is because the real demand of crude oil has significantly dropped these past two months. As oil is a very elastic raw material, the shift in demand strongly affect the price of the traded commodity.

The speculators, especially rogue traders decided to abandon their position and went into near panic selling of late. Especially financial firms like Goldmann Sachs and Morgan Stanley. They are now heavily exposed and no longer able to hold their position, especially considering their financial backing for their earlier mopping exercises. Other traders might go for the short selling when this happens.

The fundamental demand for oil, especially for diesel has fallen. For one, the much anticipated Beijing Olympics has already kicked off. Two, the supply of oil production has been increased with the Americans’ announcement of their increased in production, these past two months. This actually triggered the gradual selling, which is relatively steep. The drop has been quite significant.

The retail price of petrol has shed USD 25-30 per barrel.

The forward market is also coming down as well. If the price is weak, on the front end it seemed that it is going up. In actual, it is not. The market premium should be observed. It has actually gone negative. It is now at USD 2.00 lower than the actual posted price, which actually pushing the retail price down. That is indicative that the price is going down.

This is actually a physical trade. Bottomline, the fundamentals of supply and demand still rules. The demand has ‘collapse’. As such, the physical trade is significantly reduced.

Most of the speculators are not ditching wholesale market yet. However, it is moving towards the trigger level where a supportive level is expected to be breached soon. Then the wholesale ‘collapse’ could be expected.

The fair price to speculate for retail petrol at the moment is RM 2.35 and could go as low to RM 2.10 within this year. The actual effect on the economy as a whole maybe be inelastic. However, any significant reduction will definitely give the much needed positive economical psychology to the rakyat.